


to see you as you are now

by WashiEaglewings



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, post-kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-06-19 05:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WashiEaglewings/pseuds/WashiEaglewings
Summary: Sometimes, Keyblades and their wielders fall out of favor with each other.





	1. Chapter 1

It's an ordinary spring afternoon when Aqua, Terra, and Ven walk into the Great Hall. Light bounces off the wood floors Ven had polished just this morning, the stained glass windows painting the room and their bodies in blue and red and green. There's a tension in the air, like the castle itself is holding its breath watching to see what they do.

"You're sure this is how we should do it?" Ven asks, his fingertips tapping anxiously at his sides.

Aqua nods, the dark rings under her eyes a testament to the midnight hours she's spent thinking about this. She guides them wordlessly to the center of the room, where she and Terra had dueled all those years ago.

(They're still trying to come to terms with that, with _years_ passing instead of months.)

The three of them sit in a circle, Terra on her left and Ven on her right, close enough that their knees brush together. Between them, cradled in her hands, is Master's Defender.

“It would still take one of you,” she says, and eyes Ven and Terra warily. “You’re his apprentices too.”

Terra’s head is bowed so low that she can only see flashes flashes of his eyes through his long bangs. “I can’t,” he whispers. “After everything I did, it… wouldn’t be right.”

Ven pushes his shoulder against Terra’s, leaning slightly into him. Master's Defender pulses weakly in her hands. She feels its insistence and gives words to its thoughts: "It doesn't blame you. For any of this, it…"

Terra doesn't answer. She doesn't push him for one.

They should have done this months ago, in the immediate aftermath of their fight against Xehanort. But it’s taken them a long six months to heal, to restore most of the Land of Departure, to feel anything like themselves again, to come to the point of even _thinking_ —

“Aqua?” Ven asks. She looks up to see his eyes on her face, round with worry. “We don’t… we don’t have to do this, you know. You could still use it.”

She could. Easily. They’ve been together long enough now to know how the other works. Master’s Defender had been her only companion through the Realm of Darkness, had been a stalwart guide and weapon; they had shared a similar closeness in the Realm of Light as they'd tried to gather the pieces of their lives Before.

Despite the still-thick calluses on her hands that have been molded from fear-gripping the handle and the years they'd spent together, this Keyblade isn’t hers—Master’s Defender had always been _his_. Eraqus had told her once, but they do know when they need to stop fighting.

She had known when Xehanort had first fallen, when the Land of Departure had been changed from Castle Oblivion: Master's Defender was tired, and it was through.

"We have to do this," she finally says.

Terra pushes his bangs from his forehead, his blue eyes glistening.

"And now we…" Ven clears his throat, shifting his weight onto his knees. "Now we get to do it together."

If she says something she'll lose it; instead reaches out to them, moving her hands closer to the ends. Terra and Ven fill the newly empty space with a hand each, their fingers brushing against hers. Master's Defender pulses faintly between them, warm in their hands. She feels their consciousnesses brush against hers—not strongly, not like the bond between Keyblade and wielder, but comforting all the same—and takes a deep breath.

She's read the stories of the ancient Keyblade War: too often Keyblades had died in the hands of their fallen wielders, falling lifelessly onto the ground. She's determined to make this different; Master's Defender deserves something better than falling uselessly to the ground after so many years of tireless service. Aqua closes her eyes.

She feels the blade grow warm in her hands but feels it in her thoughts, too: she remembers the first time she had summoned Rainfell, how its consciousness had brushed against hers and stayed there like a persistent thought; and she remembers the first time she had summoned Master's Defender in the Realm of Darkness, how its warmth had felt less like a comfort and more an urgent warning. It had never _stopped_ feeling like a warming.

Now in this empty space Master’s Defender regards her, more faint echo than a steady presence and all the calmer for it.

 _You can go_ , she thinks, and steels her shoulders. _We'll be fine._

Wariness is the closest word she knows to describe the feeling of it in her head, like it's searching for proof. _Go_ , she repeats. _I can do this. You've done your job._ _Thank you._

Aqua remembers forcing Stormfall out of her hand when she and Terra had first fallen into the darkness: it had been an immediate severing, a pain so deep she had nearly shed tears in her descent. Master's Defender fades from her mind now in waves, a little bit at a time.

She knows it's gone when one of the knots in the base of her stomach loosens, when the metal has gone cold in her hands.

She only opens her eyes when Ven rips his hand away, cradling it against his chest like he's been burned. Terra keeps his hand on the shaft and reaches out to cradle Ven, his cheeks growing red as tears trail down his cheeks. "That was… horrible."

The cold metal leeches the warmth from her hands, and it feels numbing.

"I never want to do that again," Terra whispers.

Somehow she feels calmer.

Aqua opens her mouth to say, _and we never will_. But who knows what might be in store for them? She can't make promises like that anymore, not when she doesn't know if she can keep them.

"Aqua?"

"Yes, Ven?"

"Were we still going to…?" he says, and gestures to the three wooden thrones at the back of the room.

The gold plate rests behind the center throne. Aqua nods. "Yeah. Ven, did you…?"

"On it," he says, and nearly sprints to the back of the throne.

Terra’s hand is still on the Master’s Keyblade. Aqua looks to him, the knot back in her throat and a mortifying sting building behind her eyes. “Are you going to be okay?” she whispers, the best she can come up with.

He doesn’t answer right away, rubbing his thumb up and down the cold steel. It bumps into hers more than once, but neither of them flinch at the contact. “It needed to happen,” he says finally, rubbing his eyes again with the back of his hand. “It was better than my idea.”

“The hill would have been beautiful,” Aqua says gently.

“But after the Graveyard…" They still haven't talked about the fight, even now. But she knows he's thinking of the same thing: the fields of dead Keyblades standing in the ground, rattling in the wind. "Ven’s right. It needs to be here, with us.” He lowers his head and says something low underneath his breath before looking back up to her. “Just like he is.”

Aqua doesn’t get the chance to respond before Ven calls their names. He's half hidden by the chairs, one hand leaning awkwardly against the back. "You should be the one to put it up."

Her hands are shaking when she stands and walks to the thrones. She pointedly keeps her eyes away from the middle, the chair of the Successor— _her chair_ , and she hates herself for thinking it—and walks instead to stand beside Ven. The simple golden place is fixated to the back of the chair where Eraqus had once sat—where she will sit, and why can't she snap out of this?—and it only takes a bit of modified Magnet magic to mount Master's Defender onto the place, the E-shaped teeth pointing down where the world's keyhole rests in slumber.

They gaze up at it, the three of them, until gold and green have shifted to red and purple and then finally to star-lit darkness.

Terra is the one to break the silence. “We should eat something.”

“The Master’s favorite dish?" Ven asks.

Aqua smiles. "Spiced noodles?”

"We should have enough to make the sauce." Ven sniffles, his smile hesitant. "Just promise—"

"Not to go overboard on garlic," Terra and Aqua finish, smiling.

The sun has set behind the mountains before they decide to leave the Great Hall. Terra leads the way out and down the stairs, his hands curled into fists and his eyes forced forward; Ventus follows, his hand calm in hers and his eyes torn between Terra and Aqua.

Aqua looks straight ahead too, but even as she descends the steps and the thrones disappear from view she still thinks of them.

+

They parts ways after dinner: Ventus to the lounge area, and Terra to take a shower. Aqua had wandered to her bedroom instead, intending to bury herself in a book. But her volume of ancient fairy tales sits abandoned as she sits on her bed, looking down at her hands. Her full belly can't distract her from this new awkward emptiness.

She summons Stormfall to fill it, watching the rose petals appear and dissolve into light. Though her hands have finally started to heal from years of fighting, they’re still swollen to fit Master’s Defender; Stormfall is still awkward in her grip, and the weight of it still feels off. It knows it--it doesn’t thrum in her consciousness the way it should, the way she half-remembers. The gray-blue blade shimmers in the candlelight as she turns it, trying to reacquaint herself with the balance.

Stormfall is her blade, the one that best represents her very being, and yet… something's off. She can't pinpoint what it is, just that she's… there's a bigger knot in her belly than there had been when she'd carried Master's Defender, an itch to her skin that a burst of Thunder hadn't been able to soothe.

"What is wrong with me," she whispers, and drops the weapon onto her lap to rest.

"You're burning too much lavender." She looks up to see Terra leaning against her door frame, his arms crossed and brow furrowed.

Aqua straightens. "I can cast Aero—"

"I like lavender," he says, and glances to the small chair opposite her bed. She nods and he comes into her room, sitting sideways on it with one arm hanging off the back. "But you only burn it like that when you're super stressed."

"There's plenty to be stressed over," she says. "I just need a good night's sleep. I'll be fine in the morning."

He's giving her that look again, like he doesn't believe what she's saying. "Aqua…"

"What," she says, and smiles. It feels wrong, too, but she pushes through. "Don't tell me you're worried about me leaving tomorrow."

He doesn't play along, staring at her with a quirked brow. "I'm worried about you," he says. "We've been through a lot with restoring the Land of Departure, and we just retired the Master's Keyblade, and we—"

"We've been gone long enough," Aqua says. Her fingers curl tighter around Stormfall's thick handle. "I have to get back out there. The worlds are different now that they're connected, they need someone to guide them."

"We have other Keyblade wielders now, you know. You can afford to slow down."

"I've slowed down plenty," she says, and stands up from the bed.

"Aqua, just—"

"Those children have been fighting too long. They need a break, too." Aqua sighs. _It's going to be okay_ sticks in her throat. Instead she says, "It's supposed to be one mission. And it's not as though I'm going alone, I'll be with Lea."

Terra chuckles, running his hands through his hair. "You say that like it's supposed to soothe me."

"He… has the makings of a talented Keyblade wielder." And he's one she doesn't know very well. She wants to change that, especially if she's going to be… She shakes her head. "It'll be fine. You don't have to worry about me." Her eyes soften. "You could come with us, if you wanted."

She wants him to. But she knows, the minute he looks down at his hands shaking in the light of the candles, what he'll say next. "I need more time," he says. "I still don't have the stamina to go off-world."

Aqua walks to him, placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "You will."

"Maybe. In time," he says. He leans into the touch, his shower-flushed cheek pressing against the back of her hand. "But I know if I burn myself out too quickly now, I won't be able to do my best later."

Aqua turns from him to look at the thin ribbons of smoke rising from the burning incense. She breathes deeply, until she swears she can taste it on the back of her tongue.

"You're allowed to take a break," he says, "is what I'm saying."

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. "Maybe when the worlds are more stable."

"Aqua…"

" _Please_ ," she says, forcing steel into the reply. His eyes widen and he stiffens. "We spent time resting and restoring our home, and it was important work. But we're in a place where we can show ourselves to the World again, and I just… I need to do this, Terra."

She can't look at him when he hesitates. Even with his cheek still pressed against her hand, she's worried he'll walk away. But he doesn't; he shifts, he looks up to look at her, and when their eyes meet it's with a quiet almost-acceptance. "Okay."

"Okay," she repeats, and a weight is added to her chest.

"Did you want me with you tonight?"

She's not sure what's most worrying—the fact that he asks, after two weeks of sharing a bed in sleep, or the fact that her immediate answer isn't of course I do. She's the one to pull away from him, Stormfall a heavy weight in her hand. "Tonight I just… I need to think."

If Terra's hurt by this, he doesn't show it. Instead he rises from the chair, pushing it back to its proper place underneath her desk. "I'm just going to be down the hall," he says.

"I know."

"Sleep well."

"You too," she says, and watches him leave.

When his footsteps have stopped echoing down the hallway, she flips her night light on and blows out her candles. By now the lavender scent is almost smothering, seeping into her skin. She refuses to open a window to let the cool night air rush in. Instead she strips down and lays on top of her bed, Stormfall still held tightly in her hand. Try as she might to adjust her grip on the handle, it still feels wrong.

It would be easier to take a break. Maybe it's even what she needs. But the worlds need her too, and it's her responsibility to step up and see them through this great change. She can't just lie around on a beach or look at the stars, she's a Master and she needs to act like one—

Stormfall grows hot in her hands—too hot—Aqua winces and dismisses it, brushing a thumb against the new red lines in her skin. A quick Cure is enough to erase them, but the pain lingers. Stormfall's angry presence in her mind lingers, too.

"Not you too…" She flips sides. "Rest."

Her palms quiver, restless.

"I'll be useless if I can't sleep," she says. "Just… leave me alone."

She waits for Stormfall to fade from her thoughts. Even then, it takes hours for her to fall into slumber.

+

She spends two days walking through Enchanted Dominion expecting something to happen. Nothing does. The people are resilient if a bit guarded, more interested in knowing how to protect themselves at home than wondering how to explore everything outside their now-fallen borders. That's easy enough to fix: a few well-meaning words, reassurances, friendly smiles. They take their time learning the people, and then they leave.

She remembers the world's shadow-self from the Realm of Darkness more than the green forest she's walking through now. Even now, as she and Lea head back to the Gummi Ship loaned from Chip and Dale—a concession she had made since Lea was nowhere near ready to actually ride long distances on his Glider—she's surprised by the vibrancy of this world. Pops of color interrupt the otherwise vast field of green and blue, bright pops of red and yellow flowers breaking up the landscape. It makes her miss home.

"Got your head in the clouds, Master?" Lea's voice snaps her out of her thoughts.

"No," she says automatically. She turns to see him watching her, his green eyes alight. She chuckles. "Taking in the surroundings. It's been awhile."

"Kind of different," he says. "Compared to what I'm used to, I mean. Nice change from all the red and orange."

"You still enjoy Twilight Town?"

"Ice cream's great. Company's better." He brushes bits of fallen leaves off his shoulders, watches them fall onto the mossy forest floor. His eyes tighten when he says, "Still, it's nice to get off-world and do stuff again."

"Don't tell me you've been bored with a three-month break."

"This may be a surprise to you, but I'm not much of a diplomat. And with all this running around and stabilizing the poor townspeople whose lives have just changed instead of ended, well." He huffs. "Let's just say it's not my speed."

"It's part of what we do as Keyblade wielders," she answers smoothly, keeping one eye open for the red sheen of their ship. "We bring and keep balance. But now that the worlds know of each other, we have to adapt."

"I can't just be the guy you send out to bash some Heartless?"

"Not if you want to become a Master." She eyes him, brow furrowed. "If that is something you want to do."

"Well," he says, and shrugs. "I just—"

She feels the ripple of darkness before she sees the monster, long and lithe and catlike with its red eyes glowing. They haven't even locked eyes for a whole second before it rushes toward them, clearing two long bounds. It nearly gets a third before Aqua summons a Barrier, which it crashes into with a roar.

"Now _this_ is what I'm good at," Lea says, a twitch of his hand calling forth his Keyblade. "Cover for me."

"Lea," she starts, but he's already run to the side to fire a white-hot Fira from his Keyblade. It's a bright burst of red-white among the cool green surroundings, and that's probably as distracting to the Heartless as the heat of the attack.

Regardless, it brings the Heartless away from her and toward Lea with a harsh snarl. She watches him for a moment as he slices through the air in red and white arcs. He's sloppy in close-range battle, his stance unbalanced; he'll be lucky if he stays upright throughout the fight. One long strike across its abdomen is enough to send it flying, and as it crashes to the ground two more Fira balls come to smack against its head.

Long range fighter, then. Alright.

Aqua stands and readies herself into a battle stance, flaring her hand to summon Stormfall.

Her hand remains empty.

"What...?" Aqua tries again, extending her hand out farther. Nothing. Tries with the other hand. Nothing.

There's no trace of it in her mind, no thrum of its presence. It's only her thoughts, her blood boiling hot, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Electricity burns under her skin and she lets it out, expecting a crash of Thundaga. She only gets sparks, sees them ripple across the Heartless's back as it whips its head to roar at her.

And Aqua can only stare, lock-kneed and hesitant, as it runs toward her with its claws aimed straight for her thundering heart—

Lea's Firaga obliterates it, ash and dark smoke combining together. There's only the sickly-sweet stench of darkness and a few scorch marks to show a fight went down. Lea looks no worse for wear, his forehead glossy with sweat. He tilts his head as he shoulders his blade. "Was that supposed to be some sort of test?"

She flashes her hand out again, her teeth bared.

Nothing.

"Hey, everything okay?"

Her chest is tight and her hand feels empty, it feels _wrong_ , something has happened, has this ever happened? _Can_ this happen? She can't remember—

"Hey, hey, hey." Pressure on her shoulders. She flinches and Stormfall still doesn't come, not even when Lea's eyes find hers. "Don't zone out on me like this, I hate it when people do that."

Her heart's practically beating out of her chest and her hands are empty—sweaty and shaking and _empty_ —and yet her voice is eerily cool when she looks up at him.

"Stormfall's gone."

Lea stares at her blankly for a moment, then freezes. "Your Keyblade?"

"Gone," she repeats, and bows her head.


	2. Chapter 2

Lea drives her home.

The gummi ship, all curved edges painted black and white and red, had been a gift from King Mickey to the three heroes of Twilight Town. She sees proof of them everywhere: in photos taped to every non-windowed surface, in pairs of shoes tucked underneath the seats, in bits of seashell taped haphazardly to the walls. Two jackets, one checkered-and-red and one pitch black, hang haphazardly off the back of Lea’s seat, pinned down by his back.

He says nothing to her, and she’s grateful for it. He’s filled the silence with loud music that thrums through her seat and into her very bones, and bobs his head back and forth as he dodges meteorites. Aqua keeps her eyes straight ahead, knowing that at some point their eyes will meet and he’ll get that _look_ and she’ll lose her will and dissolve.

She flexes her hand again, the fifty-second time since they’d left Enchanted Dominion. Nothing. Not even a tug at the back of her mind to let her know Stormfall was even listening.

She tries again, try fifty-three. Nothing.

Fifty-four. Nothing.

_You’re nothing—_

“Bandages are in the bathroom,” Lea says.

She looks up. “What?”

Lea doesn’t quite meet her eyes as he glances down, his grip loose on the controls now that they’ve cleared an asteroid belt. She follows his eyes to see new crimson crescent marks in her naked palm.

There’s enough magic left in her for a Cure. It takes her longer, the flash of green light is nowhere near as vibrant, but soon the wounds are gone. The blood disappears with a smear of a nearby cloth. “I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are,” he scoffs.

She braces her shoulders, tries to smooth down the worst of her curled lip. “I’m going to figure this out.”

Lea shrugs and says a soft, “If you say so,” and turns up the music so loud it starts rattling in her skull. Stars and the hearts of newly-joined worlds shine out the windows, unaware of them passing in the gummi ship.

This isn’t the end of the world. It’s a setback. She’ll find the answer.

Aqua spends the rest of the trip walking back and forth, trying not to trip on discarded clothes and souvenirs from other worlds. Any attempt to try and tidy the place is met with a sharp “Knock it off” from Lea. So she paces, her hands twitching and tugging for any sign that Stormfall might be listening to her, and paces, tugging again and again looking for that connection, and paces, until the sky finally ripples and black explodes into blue and green and gold.

“We’re here,” he says, and lands the ship.

Aqua jumps out almost immediately, leaving Lea with a curt “Thank you” before shutting the door in his face. It’s abysmal behavior and she knows it, and she has half a mind to turn around and apologize, to at least get him a glass of water before he goes back home, but the emptiness in her hands demands she move, move, _move_.

She does, right to the library.

Nearly half of their collection had been lost to the transformation _—the one she’d made to save Ven, and wasn’t Ven more important than the histories of the Masters before and after him?—_ but she has to hold on to the hope that there’s _something_. Mid-morning sunlight dribbles in from the dirty windows as Aqua moves between the shelves, grabbing books by the arm-full to make a temporary home at the huge oak desk in the center of the room. She pulls from tomes she recognizes from her studies with Terra and the Master: diaries of ancient Keyblade wielders, musings from Master Tama that dated to the ancient Keyblade War, books designed for the youngest students.

It’s still a marvel to wipe her hands with the cleaning cloths she’d salvaged from the wreckage, to slip the gloves on, to feel the pages in her hand. The rustle of paper grounds her thoughts and keeps her focused on the task at hand. She needs answers.

_“The Keyblade is an extraordinary and unique weapon, originally designed to collect the light—”_

Nothing.

_“Keyblades are pulled directly from the heart, and it is possible they might reflect them—”_

Nothing.

_“Only those powerful enough to be named Master can awaken the potential in a worthy heart—”_

She is not _—_

“Aqua?”

She looks up with a crick in her neck and her eyes watering. Ven stands on the opposite side of the table, dirt smeared across his cheeks and the backs of his hands. “I didn’t see you land, did…” He trails off. “Are you okay?”

She laughs, and Ven’s face falls. “Just looking up something.”

“What’re you looking up?” he asks.

Aqua hesitates, opening and closing a fist. Still _nothing._ “Something about Keyblades.”

“I remember some of these,” he says, grabbing another cleaning cloth to wash his hands and upper arms. “What is it you’re looking for?”

“It’s something… difficult.”

Ven tilts his head. “Well, maybe I can help you look—”

“ _No_ , Ven.”

Silence is not a strange thing for libraries. It is for them, before Xehanort and especially in the six months after his fall. She doesn’t see him shift his body, or put the cloth down; she doesn’t have to. The chair squeaks under his weight, and pages ruffle in the wind created by his sigh. She’s reminded acutely of a younger Ven in Radiant Garden staring up at her—

“Aqua…?”

She has just enough time to push the books out of the way before her traitor tears start falling. Just one or two, like normal. She brushes them away with one finger and sighs, forcing her eyes open. “You can’t overreact.”

“What do you—”

“Stormfall won’t come to me.”

Ven freezes. “What…? Since when?”

“Today,” she sighs.

“And you’re okay—you didn’t get hurt?” he amends, giving her a once-over.

“I’m—” She pauses, flexing her hand again. After a while she decides, “Not hurt.” It’s closer to the truth.

“Okay. Okay,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “Uh, how long have you been here in the library?”

“It’s only been a few,” she starts, turning to the window. She stops; the sunlight has gone colder with the coming dusk, purple and orange beckoning shadows from the stacks. Her brow furrows. Almost an entire day? “Oh.”

“You’re probably hungry after being with Lea for two days,” he says, a smile blooming.

“Not really…”

He only falters for a moment. “Well, I know Terra’s cooking his meat stew with carrots from the garden.”

This surprises her—his body still has moments of weakness after spending so long under Xehanort’s influence; before they had retired Master’s Defender he had spent most of the day sitting. Maybe the tightness in her belly is partly hunger, and not entirely anxiety. She takes the gloves off and wipes her eyes again, hoping the redness can be explained away by long hours reading. “Sure.”

Ven guides her, holding her hand the way they used to when he had first come to the Land of Departure. The long halls echo with him talking about the day he’d had (mostly working with Terra, going down to Cable Town for groceries) and she tries her best to follow along. Because she’s _missed_ this, the two of them talking about their lives and how they’d spent their days with the expectation that there would be so many more to follow—to not think about the darkness that had stolen so many of their days away from them.

“...keeps playing in the trees, but whenever I get close she growls at me!”

“Hm?”

“Remember that little black cat you saw last week? I only see her there, and whenever I try to go pet her she runs away.”

She remembers: it’s a tiny thing, black with a white muzzle. She’s only seen glimpses of it herself, peering from the shadows. “Maybe she’s scared,” she says, as they round the corner to the large kitchen. “You can’t force her to do what you want.”

“I guess…”

The kitchen is already warm when they arrive. Terra sits with his back turned to them, thumbing through a book of his own. She remembers when Ven would pounce at every opportunity to sneak up on Terra and attack playfully. That doesn’t happen anymore. Instead Ven says, “Please tell Aqua I’m not good at being patient,” and waits for Terra to turn and recognize him before putting a hand on his shoulder.

“When she gets—oh, you’re home,” he says, looking up at her. “Wait, when did you get back?”

“Early this morning.”

“I didn’t hear you,” he says, and furrows his brow.

“I’m sorry, Terra.” She should have let them know as soon as she’d landed. Should have apologized to Lea for her horrible behavior. Should have—

“Well, you’re here now,” Terra says. “That’s what matters.” He pauses. “Anything interesting happen in Enchanted Dominion?”

She laughs, running a hand down her face. “Not really.”

“Lea didn’t give you any trouble?” he asks, starting to push himself away from the table. Ven rushes to intercept him, lifting the lid off the pot. “Ven, hey—”

“Let me handle this, you had a long day today. Besides,” Ven says, sneaking a scoop of stew out of the pot, “you never cook the carrots enough.”

“They’re not supposed to be mush,” Terra teases.

“I’m not talking about mush, I’m talking about soft! Delicious!”

"Mush," she and Terra answer together, and laugh.

Little exchanges and teases like that keep the attention off of her. Aqua likes it that way. And while she doesn’t miss the little glances they throw her way, she manages to bring the conversation off of her _—_ to the food (“see, this is the perfect softness!” “Ven, that’s a potato.”) and to Ven’s haircut (“I kind of like the sides shorter, does it make me look less like Roxas?”) and to the slow fade of the dark circles underneath Terra’s eyes.

The next thing she knows, Terra is calling her name.

The kitchen is dark now, lit only by a nightlight just beside the sink. Terra sits in front of her, their knees just an inch from touching and his hands moving restlessly over his pants. “Were you dreaming?”

“Was I moving?”

“You kept flexing your hand,” he says, mimicking the motion.

She says nothing.

Terra sighs. “C’mon, it’s late. Did you want to sleep on the table, or a bed?”

She knows this song and dance; how long had she talked to Ven with questions and songs when he had first come to them? “Bed,” she whispers.

She’s surprised by the sudden flash of Ends of the Earth illuminating the room, by the heavy _thunk_ of Ends of the Earth against the tile; and she’s surprised again when his Keyblade changes its shape, the heavy blade receding into a sturdy cane. “Kind of pushed myself today,” he says sheepishly, and offers a hand.

If she doesn’t name the bitter taste at the back of her mouth and the sudden sweating of her hands, does it really exist? She swallows the worst of it down, shudders at the taste, and takes his hand. Aqua leads.

Their feet fall in sync, the way they used to when they were kids and obsessed with the stories of soldiers and war heroes. Up the stairs is a quiet climb, slow in moments where Terra has to rest against the bannister to catch his breath. “What did you even do?” she asks.

“Stuff,” he says with a shrug.

“Stuff like…?”

“Little bit of gardening, for the carrots. Practiced a bit of magic.”

“Without being asked?”

“I don’t want to get too rusty,” he says, and pushes himself back up.

They go back and forth like that as they climb the stairs, walk down their familiar hallway. Terra pauses for a moment in front of her bedroom, his hands clasped over the blue handle of his key-cane. “I guess this is goodnight.”

“Yeah,” she says, keeping her eyes averted from Ends of the Earth. “Can you make it?”

“It’s just a few feet away,” he says, gesturing down the hall.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats. “Sleep well.”

She fiddles with her clothes, leaving herself naked enough only to change into a simple black nightgown. There’s still remnants of lavender from the other night, a sign she’d burned too much at once. It does nothing to soothe her.

She flexes again, reaches again. Again. Again. And even without sitting in her bed for five sleepless hours, she knows that it’s going to be a lonely night.

On lonely nights, she needs Terra.

Aqua gets as far as one knock before he opens his bedroom door in his sleep pants. Ends of the Earth is out of his hands, though he leans heavily on the door frame. There’s no surprise in his expression, just a soft, “Come on.”

His bedroom is warm and cozy with its soothing brown walls, blonde furniture, heavy curtains that block out every speck of light when drawn. The large window against the southern wall had been thrown wide open to bring the fresh night air into the room; she breathes it in deeply, almost smiling.

They’d fallen into this routine months ago, after nightmares of themselves with yellow eyes and gray hair that they couldn’t explain to Ven. More often than not they end up in Terra’s room since he has the bigger bed and the best view of the castle grounds. He turns on the nightlight, casting moons and stars onto the walls, as she climbs into bed; Terra is only seconds behind her, falling into the firm mattress with a pleasured sigh.

Aqua watches the spinning shapes for a bit as the two of them settle, their hands finding each other in the semi-darkness. He’s developing calluses on his hands again after the last month of light training his healing body has allowed him; hers have only just begun to soften with daily showers and lotion.

“You’re really doing okay?” she asks quietly.

“Bit of rest and I’ll be fine.” He pauses, fluffing pillows behind him.

“You’re sure nothing happened in Enchanted Dominion?”

The pillows are hard as rocks under her head. She throws her head back against them anyway, her free hand gripping the bed sheets. “I lost Stormfall,” she says to the ceiling, pointedly avoiding Terra’s eyes.

He shifts beside her. She glances at him for a moment, but he’s looking at the ceiling too. “I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be,” she whispers.

“Is there anything I can do?”

_Help me get my Keyblade back_ seems too obvious, and she can taste the poison of it even as she thinks the words. _Ask Master Yen Sid what to do, as a hypothetical, because if anyone finds out I’ll be—_

“Can you,” she starts, and gasps as her eyes start burning.

“Come here,” he says quietly, and shifts on his side to open his arms. It snaps her to attention: Terra is physical but rarely offers displays of affection. Aqua scoots hesitantly toward him, already feeling the warmth radiating from his body, and pushes her forehead into his chest.

She won’t let herself really cry; it’s bad enough that she did it in front of Ven, there was no reason to drag Terra into a breakdown. There are enough tears to turn her vision blurry, for the stars to become bleeding comets and the crescent moons to be little more than leaves spinning to the wood floor _—_ not enough to turn her voice raspy, not enough to loosen the knot coiling tighter in her belly.

It’s a good thing he’s so close, she finally decides. He won’t be able to see her.

His arms loosen around her as he fidgets, his arm moving slightly underneath her. She lifts her shoulder up to give him space. “Sorry.”

“You’re okay,” he says, settling back into the bed.

It would be easy for them to leave it at that, to go haphazardly into an awkward night. “What do I do?” tumbles out instead, too heavy for the warmly lit room.

Terra only pauses for a moment to think. “Do you want an actual answer or a feel-good answer?”

Her tight smile feels wrong on her face after the day she’s had. She’s glad Terra can’t see it. “Both.”

“We take this one step at a time,” he says, folding her head under his chin. She likes the support of it, leans into it so her lips are brushing against his collarbone. “Look deeper in the library. Meditate. Maybe ask Master Yen—”

“ _No_ ,” she says, and pauses. “No, not… not yet.”

“Okay,” he says immediately. “And until we can find something, we just… rest. As hard as that is for you.”

“Has it been for you?” she asks.

There was a month where even walking up the stairs would have been an hour-long affair for Terra; years of possession had left more of a physical mark on him than anyone would have guessed. His legs brush against hers, rough meeting coarse, as he sighs. “Yeah. But I’ve needed it. If I want to bring my all, I have to be in the best shape.”

“Smart.”

He chuckles, and the sound rumbles in his chest. “You sound surprised.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Aqua says, heat burning her cheeks. She pulls back to look at his face. The moving lights make his skin look almost gold, and his eyes—

“It’s okay,” Terra says. “Just a joke, right?”

Blue.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, and clears his throat. “Tomorrow I’ll help you look in the library. We’ll figure this out. We always do, right?”

“Right,” she whispers.

Do wishes on stars count if they’re projected on walls? She wishes on them anyway, even as Terra falls asleep beside her.

_Let me fix this. Let this be okay._

It takes three hours instead of five to fall into slumber. But it’s a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to scream with me on [tumblr](http://awakingdormancy.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/awakingdormancy)!


	3. Chapter 3

"This is hell."

"We've lived in hell, Terra."

"Not actual hell," Terra says across from her, closing a tome so old the leather spine is in shreds. "Just… you know what I mean."

She nods. In the three days they've spent in the library, feeling only mirror-filtered sunlight on their faces, they've made little to no progress. There are more books on the tables and chairs than in the stacks, each a reminder of failed expeditions into their thousands of pages; none held the answer to the question they were searching for. Her neck spasms when she leans back, but it's a grounding pain; even her weak Cures are enough to soften the ache of it. "Did you find anything?"

"Someone's thousand page opining of whether Thunder spells are a sub-class of Fire spells or two completely different classes that should be treated differently." Terra groans, resting his head on the oak table. "But nothing about our problem."

Aqua stops just short of correcting him—it's  _ her _ problem, he’s free to draw his weapon at his whim—before pulling a battered diary from the edge of the table. " _ From the depths of the heart are Keyblades found _ ,” she reads, the only faded sentence on the yellowing page. “Master Tama's still the closest we have to an answer and it means nothing."

"The problem isn't that you can't use any Keyblade, it's that you can't use Stormfall. Right?"

She pauses. "I think so.” Even though it hadn’t been the perfect fit, Master’s Defender had worked alongside her. 

"Do you…" Terra clears his throat, offering his hand across the table. "You could try holding Ends of the Earth. If you wanted."

They share a bed at night and talk about their fears and dreams like it's nothing—but the thought of holding his Keyblade, the physical manifestation of his very soul, it's almost… too intimate, even for them. "I need it to be mine," she finally says, burying her head in her hands to hide the red heat spreading across her face. "But thank you."

He's a little red too, she notes, and has to clear his throat a few times before saying, "O-Of course. Anything for you."

She flushes deeper. “The same, you know. If you ever need it.”

This sort of intimacy, found in their slow smiles, is enough for her.

They’re drawn out of the moment by the heavy wooden doors of the library squeaking open. It's as good a warning as the two of them get before Ven walks to them, two plates of sandwiches in his hands. "How's it going?"

"Could be better," she mutters, taking her plate. "What've you been up to?"

"Nothing much," he says, splitting into a contrary grin. "But you'll never guess who I just got off the phone with."

Terra chuckles. "Is it—"

"Sora's planning a trip to go visit everyone in Twilight Town," Ven says, looking for a spot to sit and finally settling on a rare clean spot on the edge of the table. From the corner of her eye she sees Terra brace himself against it, to keep it balanced. "He wanted to see if we wanted to come along!"

"What did you tell him?" she asks.

"Well, I'll probably end up going. But I wanted to see if you guys wanted to take a break. And we'd be right near Master Yen—"

"No," she says firmly. It’s bad enough that she’s had Terra and Ven in here combing through every page of this library or trying to hide conversations the second she walks into the room—admitting this to anyone outside of their little trio only adds more shame to her grief. "No one can know about this."

"Maybe someone can help though," Ven says gently. "You don't have to go through this alone. I mean, obviously, 'cause we're here."

And she's lucky for it. Isn't this what she wanted, to have them here by her side? Tears bite behind her eyes and she forces them shut, hopes to keep them from falling. "I know. Thank you."

"We don't have to tell anyone else what's happening. But I think Ven's right," Terra says softly. Pages rustle as something moves—his hand, maybe? She peeks just a bit to see his hand outstretched toward hers; it stays there even when she doesn't move to grab it. "I think a break would do us some good. Get out and feel some sunshine, clear our heads. I think it would be good for all three of us to go off-world. It’s been a while."

Terra and Ven look at her now in the slowly-dusking light like she’s about to fall apart any second. (She is, but she can’t let them know that.) She buys time by taking a bite of her sandwich—too much sauce, but it’s the only flaw—and chews, over and over. Finally she sighs and pushes her plate away, suddenly full. “Okay. How will we get there?"

"Your armor works, right?" Terra asks.

She hasn't tried; she feels them, heavy and compressed inside her pauldrons. "But if I show up in my armor and not riding my Keyblade…"

"I know a good place we could touch down, nice and quiet. And if it gets to be too much—or any of us," Ven adds, trying too hard not to glance at a newly-alert Terra, "then we leave. Easy as that!"

"And we’d be together," Terra says, and nods. "I’m in."

"Okay," Aqua says. "When are we supposed to be there?"

"Well… right now, actually."

"Right n— _Ven_." But her sigh rolls easily into soft laughs as he pouts, flashing the puppy-dog eyes that always won her favor when he’d been small. "Do we need to bring anything?"

"Just ourselves!"

"Do we at least get to shower first?" Terra asks, sheepishly grinning.

Ven thinks about this for a moment. "I guess it’d be rude not to…"

"It absolutely would," Aqua says. "Meet in the courtyard in an hour?"

"You think you can take just an hour?" Terra teases.

It’s a challenge, and she knows she’s being baited. "Want to bet?"

"Dish duty for next week."

"Done."

Terra practically shoves his sandwich in his face and gets up slowly, gripping the table for purchase. Ven takes a look at her abandoned sandwich and sighs, passing her with a pat on her shoulder. Aqua is the last out of the room.

It isn’t until she’s standing under the hot water that her body relaxes. Somewhere there’s a clock ticking down her hour allowance, but in the steam she loses track of it—in the steady spray there’s nothing but herself. No thoughts, only truths: showers are indulgences, shampoo a miracle in a paper-patterned bottle, soap a glistening jewel from deep in the Dwarven mines. She bathes until her fingers wrinkle and her skin is heat-stained red, lathering and relathering until the water finally runs cold. Only then does she step out of the shower, carefully patting herself dry and wiping the fogged-over mirrors with a towel. Her shoulders and face are too red for her liking, her skin a little too tender, but the worst of her dark circles seem to have faded, just a bit. It's not the victory she was looking for in the library, but she'll take it.

Aqua walks down to the courtyard with a little pep in her step, stopping just before the door. She hasn’t tried her armor since losing Stormfall—the armor isn’t reliant on the Keyblade to work, but it is connected. Aqua takes a deep breath to settle her stomach, then slams her fist into her pauldron. Light floods her eyes and she holds her breath, waiting—waiting—

There: the solid weight settles on her shoulders, shadow momentarily blinding her as her helmet materializes. She looks down at her hands and flexes, squats down on the ground, spins her arms just to make sure everything still fits. The magic of the armor accommodates the new broadness of her shoulders and widening of her hips, but it's heavier than she remembers. Less like a second skin and more like standing in a tin can.

Still, she can walk. Maybe…

Her hand flexes and—still nothing. She sighs and pushes open the grand doors.

Even through her visor she knows it will be a warm day for the Land of Departure—it’s an intense brightness, one that makes her long for rain. Terra and Ven wave at her as she walks toward them, Terra leaning on his glider and Ven spinning Wayward Wind in his hand. She twitches her own hand again and is glad for her helmet.  "So," she says, "how’d I do?"

Terra chuckles, pocketing the old stopwatch they’d once used for training. "Fifty-eight minutes."

"You had us worried the last five," Ven teases.

"Thought I was going to get out of cleaning and everything."

"Apparently I'll be baking  _two_ chocolate cakes when we get back." Aqua trails off, knowing that Terra is rolling his eyes.

"If you two are done bickering," Ven teases. "You ready, Aqua? Terra made some room on his glider for you."

She certainly wouldn't fit on Ven's—there's nowhere near enough room for both of them to stand on. At least on Terra's she'll be sitting. gliders were always designed with one rider in mind—the fact that Terra had been able to modify it at all was an impressive feat of magic. Even with the extra room in the seat they have to press close together, her arms wrapping tightly against his armored abdomen. 

"Ready to go?" he asks, turning slightly toward her.

She sighs, nodding. "Lead the way, Ven," she calls. 

Ven is quick to respond, flashing a thumbs up before opening the Lanes Between and zooming up. Terra's glider is slower to get off the ground but surges upward in a burst of power, roaring its way into the sky. Aqua tightens her grip instinctively, keeping her eyes forward. If Terra notices he says nothing, instead following Ven into the portal. 

+

Twilight Town wins her over as soon as they touch ground.

It’s the quiet buzz of energy in the air, she decides, once she's dropped her armor. The sand is coarser here than in Destiny Islands, tinted orange by the low-sitting sun. They arrive on the very top of a hill overlooking the beach, where crowds have gathered. The distance between the shore and the outlook swallows most of the sound, but she hears snippets: high whistles of violins and the rolling laughter from children.

"Sora should be somewhere down there," Ven says, dismissing Wayward Wind in a burst of light.

It’s more people than she’s seen in a decade. Aqua swallows hard, trying not to toy with the ends of her sleeves too much. "How will we find him?"

"We’ll probably hear him before we see him," Terra chuckles. His glider transitions easily into his cane, which he holds confidently in his grip; three days of nothing but studying in the library must have re-energized him. She’s glad for it. "You ready to head down there?"

Aqua doesn’t answer him right away; she’s too busy breathing in the salty sea air, so different from their mountain-framed home. She closes her eyes to it, unafraid of this darkness—the sun still beats on her face, the long yellow grass still brushes against her ankles, and when she reaches out for a hand someone fills it, warm and solid and real. When she opens her eyes Ven is there, his eyes shining and hopeful.

Aqua smiles. "Yeah," she finally says. "Let’s go."

Ven guides them down the smooth slope, careful to point out the smoothest path for Terra. Sound comes to them in waves: the high notes of a fiddler, the sound of shoes slapping against the boardwalk, the sizzle of fresh food cooking in fryers. Lights have been wrapped around street lamps and in the cords of banners tied in the empty spaces between buildings, illuminating their path. Everyone she sees is smiling, laughing their way down to the next booth or game or friend.

People don’t recognize them, and she’s glad for it. Eraqus had trained them to be silent guardians of the worlds, to keep the balance from afar; sometimes she thinks his warning to not meddle in the affairs of other worlds was as much for their own protection as it was the people and places they watched over. In this new era of connection she’s not sure how they’ll marry their teachings to this new way of living. After being frozen so long, how can she possibly adapt?

"Ten to one that’s Sora over there," Terra says, drawing her out of her thoughts. Aqua follows his eyes to the crowd gathered. Sound spills over them, tugs them closer like the tide, until they’re pushing to the front of the audience.

Two figures stand on a stage, wearing harnesses covered in balls; a third, dressed in khakis and a dark green shirt and seated above the crowd, is shouting something through a megaphone. The figure in red twirls a bright blue bat in their hand, tufts of blond hair sticking up from the helmet. She can’t figure out the other with their back towards her, but the stance intrigues her—light on their toes, bouncing like a cat readying for the pounce.

She blinks. "What is this?"

"Oh! This must be Struggle!" Ven says, and pulls her closer to the front. "Sora tried explaining the rules to me once but it’s kind of, you try to collect a bunch of balls from your opponent—"

Terra chokes.

"And—get your head out of the gutter," Ven says, elbowing Terra. "You win if you have the highest score or if you knock out your opponent."

"You're not supposed to know about innuendos," Terra sighs.

"Who do you think I learned them from?"

"Settle," she says, right as the man with the megaphone shouts, "Now! Struggle!"

The two come together in a flurry, exchanging strikes with precise strokes. Orbs—she can't think of them as balls even in her mind, damn it Terra—are replaced as easily as they're knocked off, attaching themselves on the suits with what must be magnets. 

"Two minutes left!" the announcer calls.

"There's Sora," Ven says, pointing to a familiar head of spiky brown hair. He's laughing and pounding the stage with his fists, screaming names she can't hear. Lea stands beside him, waving two flags and looking the very picture of pride. She looks closer at the dueling strugglers, catching wisps of blond hair and intense blue eyes, and laughs.

"Roxas and Xion," she says.

"Huh?" Ven asks. She points to the figure in red—Xion, barely managing to dodge a swipe at her forearm—and smiles as Ven gasps. "Oh! They're really good!"

How had she not recognized them before? Even without Keyblades and magic their battling styles are an organized chaos, only making sense if you last long enough to catch the patterns. They circle, darting around and through each other to strike like cobras. Every movement is bold and furious, but they leave themselves wide open. No guards, no caution, no hesitation. They'll be black and blue by the time their three minutes are up.

They need a teacher.

"I’d love to fight them for real someday," Ven marvels.

Isn’t she supposed to be one?

A gong sounds. She flinches backward, right into Terra. His free hand braces her shoulder, but she barely has time to register his warm palm on her bare shoulder before he takes it away. She looks up to see his brow furrowed and his head tilted. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Aqua says, and turns to the stage. Xion pulls Roxas up off the wooden stage with a smile, a little uneasy on her feet. Any words from the judge are swallowed up by the cheers of an adoring crowd. Roxas and Xion lean against each other, sweat glistening off their brows, and murmur something to each other.

Sora jumps up to hug the both of them, leading them back behind the announcers chair. Riku and Kairi hover behind them, laughing and teasing, while Lea stands a few feet back to survey the crowd. He’s the first one she locks eyes with, and even from here she sees his thin eyebrow arch with a question.

Aqua answers it with a raised chin. "We should congratulate them," she says quietly.

The announcer calls for a quick fifteen minute break and the crowd disperses, wandering over to the booths lining the boardwalk. Sora sees them as they come forward, his already-big smile threatening to break his face. "I had a feeling that light was you! Hey guys—guys, they’re here!"

"I told you we were!" Ven says, looping his arm around Sora's shoulders. Terra and Aqua follow behind him to meet the others on the side of the stage. Roxas and Xion sit on the edge, free of their uniforms and leaning against each other. "Good job, you two!"

"Oh, hey Ven," Roxas says, rubbing the side of his face. "How long've you been here?"

She's still not used to seeing Ven and Roxas so close together, almost mirroring each other. So she turns to Xion instead, who kicks her heels out from the raised wooden stage. "Are you feeling okay? No concussions?" Aqua asks, leaning down to stare into Xion’s eyes.

Her pupils are a little wide, but her smile is wide. "We’re fine! Roxas hits us harder than that in training."

"I never hit you hard," Roxas says, quickly running his fingers through the bits of hair pushed flat from the helmet. "And that’s nothing compared to that Firaga last week."

"It’s not a contest," Aqua replies. The Cure she whispers doesn’t respond with a bright green glow but a dull flash; Xion’s cheeks pinken all the same. She pulls back satisfied. "The key is to make sure you can fight the next morning, not be stuck in bed with a killer headache."

"That’s what I keep telling ‘em," Lea says, shrugging.

"Maybe they’ll listen to a Master," Kairi teases. She looks up at Aqua with a playful glint in her eyes. "C'mon, Aqua, any more words of advice?"

A Master who can’t summon her Keyblade. Sure. "Eat your veggies," she deadpans.

"Hey, I thought today was about having fun and forgetting about Keyblades?" Terra asks, checking the crowd before dismissing his cane. "What else is there to do around here?"

"There's games and food," Riku says. "Some dancing further down the boardwalk. And an ice cream shop, but last I heard they were running out of ice cream."

"Well, there's just chilling out on the beach!" Sora says. "That's always fun."

"Maybe we can pick something that we don't get to do at home."

"You have any better ideas?"

"Well it’s not like we can have a duel in the square—wait a minute," Xion says, suddenly beaming. "What if—"

"Keyblades aren’t meant for showing off," Aqua says sharply.

"Says Olympus Coliseum’s champion of the east bracket!" Ven laughs.

"Wait, Olympus?" Roxas tilts his head, blinking furiously into the sun. "You fought in the tournaments?"

"I didn’t," Ven says, "but word is that Terra and Aqua both won their brackets." His eyes widen. "Did you ever settle that?"

"Not officially," Aqua says, and turns to Terra. The sharp, gleaming eyes of a competitor stare back at her, matched with a sly grin. "What, you want to go?"

"It’d be an even playing field," he says nonchalantly, "since we’ve never played the game before."

"Are you okay to…?"

He doesn't answer right away. Had she crossed a line? Terra looks beyond her, like he's thinking of how to word something. Just when she's convinced he'll back out, he nods. "It's just one bout, right? I should be fine."

He’d tell her if he wasn’t, right? No, he would. She has to believe that. So with a sigh, she turns to Sora and Roxas. "Who do we talk to?"

It takes a conversation with the announcement, three rounds of subpar play, and a lot of tangled equipment for the two of them to stand on the stage, bats in hand. The heavy guard on Terra’s bat glints in the streetlights as he gets a feel for it, slashing it in the air. She’s mirroring his movements, trying to adjust to the foam-light feel and the sweaty grip of her star-shaped weapon. She can’t see much out of the corner of her eyes with all these balls in the way; she’ll need to be mindful of that, try to keep him in front of her at all times.

"Winner makes dinner for the next month?" Terra asks, adjusting his stance for his lighter weapon.

"Dishes  _and_ food tonight? You're feeling confident."

Terra chuckles.

"Everyone ready? Clock’s set at three minutes… and now, Struggle!"

They spend the first thirty seconds circling each other, twisting weapons in their hands. When was the last time they had sparred like this—no Keyblades, no magic, just the thunk of dull weapons against each other? She steps forward and Terra steps back; Terra steps forward and she steps back.

"Just go for it already!" someone cries in the crowd. Terra flinches, turning his head just enough to the source of the sound. 

That’s all the invitation she needs. Aqua lunges for him, taking one long swipe against his arm before dancing backward. There must be magnets in the suit to pull the blue orbs from his suit to hers; it’s the only non-magical solution she can think of as she whacks him. He strikes like a viper against her abdomen, her own red orbs sticking onto his suit. The blow won’t bruise badly, but she exhales anyway. Terra flashes a grin and readjusts his stance. 

When they’d been too young and inexperienced to summon Keyblades they’d fought with bo staffs, clunking each other on the head. This is similar. At one point—probably when he strikes her head a little too hard and she retaliates with a sharp blow to his hip—they abandon the orbs in favor of wearing each other out instead. The foam bats are too light to make any lasting damage, the harness suits too bulky for any complex evasive maneuvers—and yet she feels the strain of her muscles, softer after a few months of only light training.

"Thirty seconds left!"

She’s _missed this_ , the thrumming of her veins and the dull ache forming in her core. She hasn’t sparred since the final battle, too busy with renovations and world-stabilizing and diplomacy to go out on the practice fields with Terra and Ven. She’s laughing, and even that’s new and strange and familiar. Terra’s eyes are bright and Ven almost looks like he’s about to combust from happiness, and even Lea looks impressed, and—

She feels it. It's a prickle on her skin at first, and maybe if it had just been that she would have dismissed it as a few stray beads of sweat. But it's the sharp clench of her belly that gives her pause. Aqua dodges Terra's final blow and rips her helmet off, staring out beyond the crowd to a hot dog vendor and the quickly-growing pool of darkness taking form.

Terra gets the words out before she can: "Heartless! Run!"

The people stream for open buildings, moving with an efficiency that screams practice. Neoshadows and baying hounds and monsters she has no names for bubble from the pits of darkness, their jewel-bright eyes flashing. She feels the tugs of Keyblades being summoned long before she sees the flashes of lights materialize in their hands. Sparks of electricity and columns of fire sizzle on the ground, leaving scorch marks and steam in place of enemies; wielders fan out in practiced formations, Sora and Riku and Kairi a blur of light and darkness, Roxas and Xion unleashing unholy hell on a massive monster the size of a truck.

A gust of wind is the only warning she gets before Wayward Wind flies in front of her face, smacking a hooked bat into nothingness. Ven scrambles past her, his hands already flickering pale green with Aero magic. "You're going to be okay!"

She's supposed to be saying that. Her breaths are shallow, not enough to push down the panic building in her chest. There’s magic pooled deep in her belly but she can’t get to it—what should have been a Thundaga strong enough to shake the world to its core simmers into a weak Thundara, stunning a horde that disappears only under Riku’s precise strikes. His new Keyblade ripples with light as he completes his swing, and when the last traces of his vanquished enemies have vanished into nothingness he turns to her. She watches his eyes go to her hands—empty, useless—and then their eyes meet for a horrible, long moment. He has to know.

"Riku!" Sora shouts, and Riku turns to meet his friend's call. She's left standing on the stage, trying to battle infernos with embers.

The Heartless disappear as quickly as they’d come, leaving smoking streets and silence in their wake. No one has any visible injuries that she can see, but she knows the look in their eyes: they’re spooked. She’s spooked too, her heart beating violently in her throat and her hands suddenly clammy. It’s only when she squeezes her hands that she realizes the Struggle bat is still there, too light and too wrong for battle.

"Well that's a bummer, Lea says, shouldering his weapon. "Guess we should make sure there aren't any more Heartless sneaking around."

"We’ll split up," Sora says, no trace of a smile left on his face. "We—hey, Aqua?"

She hadn’t heard the bat fall to the ground. Her hand has to be free, in case—

Nothing.

"She didn't summon Stormfall," Riku says softly—loud enough for her to hear over the thundering of her heart. She rips off the helmet and tears herself out of the harness, leaving the bloated straps onto the ground. 

"Wait, did something happen?"

"Why didn't she call it?"

"Aqua," Terra says, too gentle for the sharp pain in her chest. She does it without thinking, flashing her hand out and summoning a Thunder. It's just a little zap, it won't even leave a wound. But it stops Terra all the same, his free hand still outstretched. "Don't go—"

"I'm... I can't," she murmurs, and turns to run down the nearest alley.

" _Aqua!_ "

By then she's already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

It occurs to Aqua, thirty seconds into running away, that she can’t _go_ anywhere.

This world is small, and there are only so many places to hide before someone finds her, and she has no glider. She only has her legs and the tunnels, full of darkness full of _Darkness_ —not the tunnels. The tram, maybe? She’s tempted to get on board, to spirit as far away as she possibly can, but the cars are already full of bright-eyed teenagers and adults with worried faces. And if she’s honest with herself, she’s too restless right now to sit down. Walking it is.

It’s reckless, wandering through Twilight Town in the immediate aftermath of a Heartless attack without a Keyblade. The alternative is worse. The world’s Heart thunders underneath her feet, a dull but important comfort: the Keyhole is still locked, and the Heartless are no match for eight Keyblade wielders. She might almost feel sorry for the Heartless--they stand no chance against them. The people of this world will be just fine.

Better than fine.

Maybe she should just—

“Riley? Riley, where are you!”

There’s no one else on this street except a man in a powder-blue polo, his hands cupped around his mouth. He’s not someone she would pick out from any crowd—he has no bright light or brilliant darkness, no extravagant features except an impressive dark mustache.

“Riley, please! Ri—hey,” he says, locking eyes. “I’m so sorry, but you didn’t come down from the festival did you? Where the, uh… the Heartless popped up?”

“I did,” she says. “You’re looking for…?”

“My daughter,” he says. “She was with her friends and I didn’t get a call, she’s _always_ supposed to call, I’m—what if she’s—”

“Sir, please,” she says, looking him square in the eye. “I’ll help you look for her.” Getting out and doing things, _helping people_ , will be leagues better for her than wandering aimlessly in a town just attacked by Heartless. “Her name was Riley?”

“Riley, yes. A-And I’m Bill. Andersen, Bill… Bill Andersen,” he says, and extends a shaking hand.

“I’m Aqua,” she says, not missing the man’s slow blink or his sweaty palms. Neither are surprising for a person in crisis; she’s doubly glad for her gloves. “You said you two had a plan in case Heartless attacked?”

“Heartless and those—weird white monsters. No ones?”

“Nobodies.”

“Nobodies, right. Sh-She’s supposed to let me know where she is so I can find her.” He groans, holding his head in his hand. “She’s okay, right? Tell me she’ll be okay.”

She can’t give him false hope, tell him _of course_ his daughter is safe and sound—though the odds are slim that something happened to her, or at worst turned into a Heartless herself, they’re there. Instead she tells him the best thing she knows: “I heard the Keyblade wielders are in town.”

“More than just the ones we have already? That’s… actually, I do feel better now. Not that I don’t appreciate ours, ‘cause I do…”

She lets him talk as they walk, responding to his questions with direct, pointed remarks. She keeps her eyes open for shapes flickering in the dark alleys, for people beginning to poke their noses out of their homes. She sees Xion once, focused on two small children clamoring for hugs and what seems to be a blow-by-blow reenactment of a takedown, and pointedly gruides Bill away from them.

Eventually they find their way onto a long and winding road just beneath the train station; the low horn of the trains is a welcome interruption from the still air. People are back in the streets again, double-checking shadows before going up to vendors and drawing crude shapes onto the ground with chalk. “You know, I actually don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” Bill finally says. 

“I keep to myself,” she says. Funny how the Master’s lie come so easily. “Dressed up a bit for the occasion.” 

“Did you… you saw them?”

She nods.

“I’ve never seen ‘em myself, but you hear talk about them. The Heartless. And those kids with the Keyblade, the way they… they’re not much older than Riley,” he finishes. “God, what if she went into the thick of it to try and watch them up close? That’s… she wouldn’t do that, would she?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she says, suddenly unable to look him in the eyes.

“Right, of course—of course you wouldn’t know, you don’t know her. I don’t think. Do you know her? She’s about this tall,” he says, hand hovering to the center of this chest, “with—”

“Blonde hair, blue eyes, cute gap in her teeth,” Aqua finishes, smiling. “I’ve never met her, but I promise I’ll help you find her.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there anywhere she likes to hang out? Somewhere she’d feel safe?”

“Places with her friends, maybe, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t… wait. Riley?”

She turns. There’s a small crowd standing in front of a domed shop, carrying bars of… is that ice cream? Bright blue and dripping. There are a few teenage girls who might look the part, and she’s about to turn to one when a figure in green turns toward them. 

“Dad!”

For some reason Aqua had pictured her younger; this girl’s just on the cusp of her teenage years, all long limbs and awkward baby cheeks, so much like a younger Ven that it hurts. She runs toward them with her mouth and fingers slick and blue, slamming into Bill with a tight hug and dissolving into a stream of words she can’t even begin to cypher.

 Instead she turns around and sees Sora, holding two bars of ice cream in his hand.

“...saved me, there was a Heartless coming and—my phone died, I’m so sorry—”

“I was so worried— _thank you,_ ” Bill says, reaching out to try and shake Sora’s hand. 

“It wasn’t a problem at all!” Sora says. “I’d shake but uh… Riley, did you want your ice cream?”

“Oh! Thanks, Sora,” she says, and grabs the bar back from him. “For, you know, everything. I’ll pay you back—”

“No need to worry! I’m glad we were able to find your dad.”

She watches the two Andersens walk off together, Bill wrapping his arm protectively over Riley’s shoulders. It’s easier than looking at Sora right now. When they turn around the corner out of sight, Aqua sighs. “Heartless attack?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time. But it all worked out.” Sora clears his throat. “When I feel down I usually eat, so… do you want some ice cream? My treat?” 

“I’m… not hungry.”

“Oh! Uh, okay.”

The townspeople around them are so busy wrapped up in their own lives that they ignore the two Keyblade Masters. It’s weird to think of Sora as one—trained by trial and strife instead of books and sand pits. In a better world, she would have brought him and Riku to the Land of Departure for formal training, watched them struggle over workbooks and wrestle in the grasses; instead she’s plagued by _what-if_ s and _maybe_ s.

“I know a place we could go, if you wanted to get away from all this.” 

She still doesn’t meet his eyes. But she nods.

The walking is good, the click-clack of her boots against the steep incline. The farther up they go the more she can taste the slightest hint of salt in the air, brought to her by a gentle breeze that tangles itself in her hair and the green bushes. They eventually stop walking at the top of a hill overlooking the sleepy town—not quite as high as the one she, Terra, and Ventus had landed on, but picturesque. 

“They call it Sunset Hill,” Sora says, throwing his arms out. “Isn’t it nice?”

It _is_ nice. Aqua settles on the loamy ground, twirling the few blades of grass between her fingers. It’s grounding, even when she tugs them out to cast them to the wind. It’s a drastic change from the outlook back home, open to a sea of dark stars, but she likes it.

“Is it… do you mind if I sit here?” 

Aqua doesn’t dare lift her head far—the stinging behind her eyes are tears, she knows, and if she starts she won’t be able to stop. Instead shakes her head. Sora settles on the ground beside her, fidgeting with one of his pockets. Even now, when she’s learned about the strange connection he and Ventus had shared, it’s eerie how much the two boys have in common: the way they hold themselves, the way they itch the backs of their necks, even the way they laugh. She eyes him warily for this, digging her nails into her covered knees to keep herself from speaking.

“Ven told me about what happened.”

There’s no pity in his voice, at least—just blunt matter-of-fact, so unlike Ven and Terra. Unlike her picture of Sora, if she’s being honest with herself. 

A few minutes must pass without her answering. Sora finally sighs and pulls that same yellow-and-black thing out of his pocket and smiles. He touches it for a few minutes, fingers flying. She’s curious, but not enough to look over his shoulder to see what he’s doing. The hill is still empty, save for them and the wind and the sky.

“You should be with your friends,” she finally says.

“They’re okay for right now. I think Riku and Roxas got into a ‘let’s see who can kill more Heartless’ competition so they won’t be thinking too much about me.”

She can just picture them jumping off the roof tops. “Who’s winning?” 

“I don’t know, but loser has to wear a grass skirt in the Pride Lands and taunt some hyenas.”

She laughs. “Who came up with that?”

“Kairi, after she knocked out this gigantic Red Nocturne.” His smile is huge, teeth dazzlingly white against his sun-kissed skin. “And then Ven—”

He pauses, and Aqua sighs, feeling her fledgling smile sink into itself again. “So they’re… they’re okay?”

“They’re fine, just… worried about you.”

She buries her head into her shoulder, trying to steady her breathing. She can’t be emotional about this. Not where people could see.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks quietly.

She doesn’t know. The full burning behind her eyes is screaming _yes, leave me alone_ but... there’s something nice about being near people who aren’t Terra and Ven. It still takes her a while to finally say, “You can stay.”

“Okay. Then… can I ask a question?” She hardly as time to decide before he leans forward. “Did you always want to be a Keyblade Master?”

She blinks. “Is this to distract me?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says. “Since you’re, you know, _official_.”

“You were named by Master Yen Sid. That’s official.” But she understands what he means, and sighs. Six months of rest and a session with Namine had helped restore most of the memories she thought she’d lost to darkness, but life before the Keyblade had always been hazy. “I think I wanted to be a veterinarian before Eraqus found me. Or a baker. But as soon as I learned about it… yes.”

She remembers the first time she’d summoned the Keyblade—Rainfell at the time, slender and light under her fingers—how it had burned even through her gloves, a flash of pain so unlike the Inheritance ceremony. Eraqus had braced her shoulders long after the fire had gone and the metal was cool to the touch, had gently explained to her that the Keyblade was not an ordinary weapon. _It is a part of you as much as your heart is,_ he’d said.

She’d been terrified, in awe. _And it’ll always be there?_

_So long as you are there for yourself._

“I don’t think anyone’s really told me what Masters _do._ Besides helping people, of course.”

“That’s the gist of it. Protecting people from darkness, keeping the peace… fighting when you must.” She chuckles, then sighs. “Hard to do without a Keyblade, though.” 

“You know,” he says, almost nonchalant, “I lost my Keyblade once.”

“I… wait.” She turns to him fully, brow furrowed. “What?”

“It was supposed to be Riku’s,” he says, lifting his hand. She’s waiting for the tell-tale tug and the flash of light that comes with a summoned Keyblade, but his Kingdom Key doesn’t materialize. “We were in Hollow Bastion—Radiant Garden, I guess. After it fell. Riku claimed it again and it came right out of my hands. Goofy and Donald left with them—”

“But... I thought they were your friends,” she says slowly.

“We weren’t as close back then,” he says, almost dismissive. “They were looking for Mickey and I was just some kid, you know? And it’s not like they’d leave me _now_ , after everything we’ve been through. But it was scary. That feeling in your head, kind of like a—a connection—”

“That’s the Keyblade,” she says, understanding immediately.

“It took me a while to figure out what it was, but when it left… it was scary.”

Aqua leans back into the grass, staring up at the sun-tinted clouds. “I was taught that the Keyblade is a reflection of your heart. It connects with you.” She teases the edges of her stockings between her fingertips; the pull of the fabric is oddly soothing, paired with the slow heat of the sun on her shoulders. “And it returned to you.”

“Yeah. It was weird, it… hm,” he says, pulling his arms back to pillow his head. “How do I put this… I kind of gave a speech? To Riku, I mean, but also to myself. That I’d fight him because I had my friends on my side. And I don’t know, it… it was like it was waiting for me to prove myself worthy of it again. And I guess I did, because the next thing I knew I was fighting with it against Riku. And then I was _saving_ Riku and everything else, you know, kind of happened.”

“That’s how things tend to go,” she sighs.

“Tell me about it.”

Silence.

The Keyblades were… it would be a mistake to call them living. Sentient. Had she said something in the hours before Stormfall abandoned her? She couldn’t remember. She’d come back from Enchanted Dominion, she had _not_ gone to bed with Terra, she...

“You have a lot of people to lean on,” Sora finally says, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Is what I’m saying. So if, you know, you want to just hang out—I don’t know how much fun Riku and I will be since we’re buried under exams for the next _forever_ , but any time you want. We’ll pick you up in the Gummi Ship, Riku packs good snacks…”

She won’t, and maybe Sora knows it because he trails off. Her cheeks aren’t as wet as she thought they’d be, and she’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed that she can’t even do _crying_ right. But she looks down at Sora, who’s eyeing her with such a naked openness that she can’t quite stifle a little gasp. “I’ll… think about it,” she finally says.

He beams, pushing himself into a sit. “So… Did you want to try hanging out at the festival again, or are you done?”

“I…” Could she meet everyone’s eyes right now? She knows the answer. “I’m done, I think.”

Sora nods and pulls a yellow-and-black… _thing_ out of his pocket. Aqua pushes herself off the ground and watches him tap the huge screen, not quite sure of what she’s seeing. A keyboard and… a picture of Roxas? “What is that?”

“Oh, this is my Gummiphone! I’m just letting Ven and Terra know where we are so we can all meet up.”

They were probably looking everywhere for her. “That’s how you contacted Ven.”

“Yeah, it’s nice! I talk with Riku and Kairi and Roxas all the time with this.” 

They need to get a set for themselves.

“Ven and Terra should be here in… just a few minutes.” Sora turns to her, the Gummiphone held loosely in his hand. “I know a good way to pass the time, if you want to get away for a little bit? There’s this game I’m having trouble with…”

It’s a little fishing game, with tiny black-and-white figures and truly monstrous fish. They only get as far as two very short rounds before she hears the familiar metallic clang of armored boots and sees her boys crest the hill. They’re a little scuffed up but don’t seem too worse for wear.

“Everything okay?” Ven asks, offering his hand to pull her up.

“No Heartless around here,” she says, a pathetic attempt at a joke. Ven chuckles awkwardly as he pulls her off the ground and Terra isn’t even smiling. Aqua turns away. “I’m fine. But I think we should go.”

“Okay,” Ven says, and reaches across her to clasp Sora’s shoulder. “Thank you.” 

“Any time you guys want to come over, I’m sure Riku and I’ll appreciate a break from homework.” He shakes his head. “You’d think being Masters we wouldn’t need to learn how to calculate the circumference of a triangle…”

“That… okay,” Terra says, meeting her eyes. Her smile is more grimace than grin, and he meets it with a short chuckle. “Riku won, by the way.”

“ _Yes!_ I have the perfect skirt for him—I’ll let you guys know when we decide to go? Travel safe, bye!” 

Aqua nods, waving long after Sora disappears. She’d underestimated his effect on people; the second he’s out of sight something dark settles over them, tugging her shoulders down. “So,” she begins, “I—”

“We should go home,” Terra says, summoning his glider with a flash of light. “While there aren’t people here.” 

Ven’s sigh is a little too knowing for this to be a sudden idea. But Aqua agrees, summoning her armor with a half-hearted press of her pauldron. It’s even harder to move in it this time, and it takes her longer to settle behind Terra—the sunlight filtered through her dark visor is almost suffocating, and she holds her breath more often than she breathes because of it.

She doesn’t breathe normally at all as they pass through the Lanes Between, ripping her helmet off the second the portal yawns open into the Land of Departure. It disappears from her hands as soon as she dismisses it, light erupting into the moonless night. The stars are only pinpricks against an inky canvas, cold and unfeeling. Aqua shivers.

Ven, out of his armor and Wayward Wind spinning anxiously in his hand, comes to her side. “So, uh… what now?”

“I’m going to head back to the library,” Aqua says. “I was talking with Sora and—”

“Aqua, I’m… back there, I thought this was going to be a good thing. I didn’t think there would be—”

“It’s fine, Ven. I just—”

“It’s _not_ ,” Terra says, still in his armor. He leans heavily on Ends of the Earth, now an even thicker cane. “We need to talk about this, not just—just dance around it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says, lifting her head up.

“You ran away from us in the middle of a Heartless attack, you’re making yourself sick studying—you _are,_ ” he insists, as she opens her mouth to protest, “you’re not sleeping at night, I’ve thrown away half the sandwiches Ven has made for you.” 

“We’re worried,” Ven says weakly. “Please, just, can we talk about this?”

Lifetimes ago, in Radiant Garden, Terra had walked away from her begging for a conversation. Aqua stills, her shaking hands curling into fists. “I’m sorry for worrying you,” she says, lifting her chin. “I am. It won’t happen again.”

“What if it does?”

“I’m not going to let it.”

“You can’t promise yourself that!”

“That I won’t hurt you?”

“That you won’t shut down and run away again!” Terra pulls his helmet off, revealing bloodshot eyes and a steely set to his mouth. It’s a look she hasn’t seen in a long time, since the very first days after the War when he’d had to start his battle to reclaim his body: frustration and anger and _pain._  “We can’t just keep pretending that everything is going to go back to the way it was.”

“The castle’s fixed!” she says, gesturing behind her—the golden chains gleaming in the lamplight, the towers standing impressive above her, the trees bending over themselves to catch their conversation. “The worlds are restored! I just have this—this problem, but it’s going to be _fine_ —”

“What if it doesn’t?”

They turn to Ven, who has dismissed his Keyblade to stare between them. “It will.”

“Aqua, I… there was a time when I couldn’t summon my Keyblade at all, remember? When I first got here?”

How could she ever forget Ven’s blank eyes, the way he had only been able to communicate in whistles and stolen lyrics from songs she fed him between bites of dinner? “Ven, I don’t—”

“Eraqus wondered if I’d ever get it back. And it took forever. _Years._ I just…” He pauses, dragging his teeth over his lip. She hasn’t seen him do that in ages—only when he’s nervous. “Maybe we should think about… what happens if we can’t fix this.”

“This isn’t the same. Your heart was shattered,” Aqua says slowly. “Mine—I fell to darkness,” she says, bitter, and she wishes she’d missed Terra’s slight flinch. “Terra fell to darkness. You were _asleep_ for _years_.” Her throat’s tightening. “And you’re both f—”

“Don’t you _dare_ say we’re fine,” Terra growls, Ends of the Earth shrinking back down to its normal Keyblade form. “None of us got through this the way we started, you _know_ that!”

She chafes against truth. “You can summon your Keyblades, you can _fight,_ you can—”

“Because we worked as a team! Together!”

“We’re best when we’re supporting each other,” Ven says, his eyes glossing over. “Aqua, this is… we can’t go back to the way things were. If you could just—”

“I need to be alone,” she whimpers. 

“Aqua,” Ven starts, “please—” 

It’s the second time in a day she’s left them calling her name, and it _hurts_ , but the burning behind her eyes hurts worse. There’s no chorus of footfalls behind her, just her own boots on the marble steps and the loud whine of the door—they echo as she runs, little pushes and pulls of sound that damn her more than their pleading ever could.

She’s being selfish but they can’t understand—this isn’t just a theft but a _rejection. T_ he clash between seven and thirteen has robbed them all of so much—of years, of control, of any semblance of self. Terra’s getting stronger each day, and Ven is sleeping more and more in the night, pushing his boundaries, and she’s still sleeping in Terra’s bed and jumping at shadows. 

Ven’s eyes are haunting her.

Terra’s, too.

She stops running. Aqua looks up. Master’s Defender stares back at her.

The hows and whys of her ending up in the Great Hall, behind the Master’s chair, staring at his empty Keyblade, they don’t matter. She laughs, smiling against the bitter sound of it. What matters anymore?

_Like it was waiting for me to prove myself worthy of it again_.

“I dedicated my life to you,” she whispers. “My hopes, my dreams, my _everything._ And this is what waited for me at the end of it?”

There’s only a smattering of light filtering from the windows. Behind them, something rumbles.

“I spent twelve years in the Realm of Darkness. Abandoned. Used by the darkness. Used by Xehanort. I doomed the worlds—is that why you’re gone? Is that my punishment? Xehanort conspired to summon Kingdom Hearts but he kept his blade until the very end.”

It’s not fair.

“And now I have a chance to _fix_ everything and you’re _gone!_ What am I supposed to do if I can’t use the Keyblade? Help me understand!”

_It’s not fair._

Master’s Defender doesn’t answer. She flexes her hand. Stormfall doesn’t answer either.

“ _Help me understand!”_

The crack of lightning illuminates the Great Hall only for a moment—enough to catch the teeth on the mounted Keyblade. Her fists lash out, catching against the hard stone of the chair. Her knuckles graze against the teeth. Dull slip of pain. No blood. Nothing a Cure can’t numb.

Aqua bangs on the chair again. Again. Again.

She doesn’t even know she’s crying until she feels the tears pluck against her skin, and that’s enough. Aqua cries past her cramping belly and her sore throat and curls into herself, pressing her back against the chair, no longer flexing her fists but curling her fingers into her hair and rocking back and forth, the way she sometimes had trapped in the Realm of Darkness with the dark forever-nights and Heartless carving their intentions into her shoulders and arms the very same ones Terra had held last week the ones Ven never seemed to notice and she’s _failed them_ , hasn’t recovered the way they have, _what’s taking her so long?_

Her breath rattling in her chest, her heart hammering in her throat, Aqua closes her eyes.

Thunder rumbles outside.

“Help me understand,” she whimpers, and opens her eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

She falls into darkness.

It’s an ancient, familiar feeling: the numbing of her fingers and toes, the fire in her belly throbbing against ice in her veins. There’s no weight to her body, and yet she knows she’s sinking. There’s almost an inevitability to it all, like the once-empty void had been expecting her again. Instead she closes her eyes, and waits.

The weight of her comes back in stages—the metal of her boots clanging against something solid. Hollow. It throbs in her ears, the echoes simmering into silence. Aqua takes steps in time to her thundering heart, a perfect waltz in her throat. Each footfall calls up bits of fine white mist that curls up her legs before slowly dissolving into the darkness.

She should be afraid, and she is, but it’s… different. This tightness in her chest, the one that’s curling her hands into fists, is a simpler sort of fear than failure.

“We’ve been waiting, Master.”

The sudden voice grabs her attention, but it’s the sudden tug in the back of her head that whips her head around. A figure emerges from the mist, long-limbed and familiar—she thinks. It’s been ages since she’s been able to learn herself in a mirror. Her own reflection stares back at her with a raised chin, a furrowed brow, open hands.

“I left you in the Realm of Darkness,” she whispers.

“We aren’t the phantom.” Her own voice but deeper, calm and eerily flat. It’s a sound her thoughts know but her ears don’t.

Despite the loud protesting of her palms she squeezes her hand—it’s muscle memory, instinct, she might not be able to wield in the waking world but maybe in this place she—

Her doppelganger shimmers once, wincing slightly before raising its pointed chin. “You cannot summon us when we’re already here.”

And now that she’s looking, really looking, Aqua can see the gray cast to its skin, the sharp sheen of its gray eyes. It stands rigidly before her, hands open toward her. Stoic. Contemplative. Ancient. When Aqua steps back and the ground rings hollow under her feet, she gasps in understanding.

_From the depths of the heart are Keyblades found._

“You can’t… Y-you’re really—”

Her reflection— _Stormfall—_ nods. 

She’d just combed the library. She’d never read anything like this. This is a fever dream. The last _thirteen years_ have been a fever dream. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes, because maybe this is the dream before the dream, maybe she’s still falling, maybe she hadn’t left the Realm of Darkness after all and the last few months have been nothing but wishes on stones she’s wished into stars—

“It’s real,” Stormfall tells her. It still stands there, _regarding_ her, when Aqua opens her eyes. “We’ve been waiting for you to come back to us.”

It’s like ice down her back—no, worse; fire in her belly, threatening to burn her from the inside out. “I’ve been here,” she says. Aqua furrows her brow, teeth bared. “I’ve been here, calling for you—you never came for me!”

“You would not let us return.”

“ _Let_ you—”

Stormfall raises its hand and her own voice washes over them, forced and hushed and dripping with anger.

_“Just… leave me alone!”_

Now she remembers: that night when she’d pushed Terra and Ven away from her, Stormfall burning in her hands, the quick prick of the Cure soothing the injury. The weight of her doubts. Bile rises in her throat as she hisses, “People were in danger when you were gone.” She walks right up to it, thunder sparking between her fingers. It’s not the precise magic that she’s used to, but it feels good in her hands; whatever pain she feels grounds her further, and she leans into it. Stormfall doesn’t flinch at her approach, and that angers Aqua more. “My friends— _I_ was in danger and you _left me!_ ”

“We left as you requested.” Stormfall closes its eyes. “Our connection had already been weak after years away from each other. When you forced us away it fractured the bond between us. We could not return.”

The spell dies in her palms. The fire in her belly fizzles to nothing. “So it’s… _my_ fault this happened,” she says.

Stormfall squares its shoulders and doesn’t answer her.

“So that’s it.” She doesn’t need a mirror to feel her smile twisting into something dark. “I made myself worthless—”

“You are _not_ worthless.”

Aqua turns her back to it, biting down her protest.  “If I can’t fight,” she rasps, “if I can’t do the job I was _trained to do—_ if I can’t honor Master Eraqus by—”

“You do not dishonor him for recovering,” Stormfall says gently. She recognizes the click-clack of heels against a hard surface. “You needed time to heal. You _need_ time to heal.”

It sounds like Terra. “I’ve had enough time."

“You’ve come down to the basest part of your heart to yell at us,” Stormfall says simply. “You have not had enough time.”

“Then tell me what I need to do to fix this,” Aqua says, her hands curling into fists. “If I need to give a speech, if I need to go on a week’s vacation, if I need to repent to you—”

“You cannot fix yourself only for us. You are _more_ than us.”

She laughs bitterly.

“Do you think we choose our wielders only because we can complete them? _You_ are who completes _us._ ” Stormfall pauses, then waves its hand. A figure appears from the mist—only reaching Stormfall's shoulder, it moves restlessly. Somehow, even as a blurred and colorless shape, she recognizes her twelve-year-old self. “Do you remember what happened the first time you came here?”

No one did; the memories of a wielder’s Awakening were quickly forgotten in the chaos of the Realm of Light. But down here, she remembers flickers: gleaming yellow eyes from black bodies. Endless fields of blue. Her own eyes etched on glass, fierce and determined for battles ahead.  And she remembers reaching for Rainfell, the flood of warmth that had washed over her when she’d held it in her hands. How that little voice had told her they were partners, bonded forever. How she’d been filled with light. How that would be the key to their success—

“No.” With a shake of Stormfall’s hand the figure in the mist disappears. “If only a heart of light was all that was needed to wield us, only seven would.”

The Princesses. “Ambition, then?”

“Partly. Strength of heart, curiosity for the outside world, a desire for change. There are many reasons. You were chosen for these, and for the love and light within you.”

Her hand curls over her heart, each beat solid and steady against her knuckles. She’s still looking at the space where her other self had been standing moments ago. “It’s weaker now.”

“Your light is still strong. But _you_ ,” Stormfall says, “are uncertain.”

There is no one here to watch her—no sympathetic eyes or worried glances or words caught dying in the mouths of her peers. It doesn’t shake away all of the shame, but it shakes away enough for Aqua to quietly admit, “I am.”

“Why.”

If Stormfall is the physical manifestation of her heart, shouldn’t it know already?

“ _Y_ _ou_ need to know.”

Aqua takes a deep breath. There’s a metallic tang to the air that reminds her of the battlefields she’d once imagined as a student, yearning for days of glory. “I failed them. Failed the Master. Failed the worlds.” She grips her hands. “Failed my friends.”

“You saved Riku in the Realm of Darkness.”

“I’m the reason he was there.”

“ _Xehanort_ was the reason he was there.”

“I couldn’t rescue Terra from him.”

“You could have let them fall in Radiant Garden. Xehanort would have been lost to the Darkness he so craved. But you saved him from that oblivion.”

“And doomed the worlds.”

“And,” Stormfall says, “you would have done it again.”

“If there was any chance to save him…” The sob tumbles out of her, tears tearing scars down her face. “Either of them. Yes.”

And she doesn’t want Stormfall to say it, because she knows it knows and _she knows—_ that’s the shame she’s been hiding from. That had been her thought in the Realm of Darkness: worries about the fate of the Realm of Light always paled in comparison to worry about her friends, and didn’t that make her a failure as a guardian? And didn’t it make her a failure as a friend to doubt them when the weight of the world fell so heavily on her shoulders?

“Destroying yourself trying to make amends for that choice is not the answer, either.”

She doesn’t feel her legs give way, only the sharp slap of them against the glass when she collapses. It startles her into sobbing harder. Aqua curls into herself, hands over her face, back bent into near-breaking, and cries. She cries until she can’t make sound, until her throat’s raw, until her body threatens to fall apart.

She hears Stormfall settle in front of her. It says nothing, does nothing. When the tears stop coming in floods and her breaths finally even out, she looks up to find it with its hands on its knees, the gray of its eyes more akin to the sea just after a storm. “We doubted ourselves when you sent us away. But we knew you needed us to watch, so we could return. But you were not the same as when we found you again.”

“I changed down there,” she rasps. “After.”

“We did too. We were… angry. You were lost and we could not help you.”

“Master’s Defender couldn’t help me either.” Aqua shudders. “In the end. And after… I had to let it go.”

“Keyblades should rest with their wielders. Master’s Defender protected you where we and Eraqus could not. You are ready to move beyond it now.”

Aqua closes her hands over her shoulders. “I’m… afraid.”

“Good. It means you still listen to your heart. The best Masters do.”

She pauses. “I’m still…?”

Stormfall tilts its head. “Do you still want to be?”

“I want to help restore the worlds. Mend what has been broken. I want…” She takes a deep breath. “To protect them. To honor them.”

“Then you must take your first steps.”

“How?”

“Forgive.”

“I can't forgive Xehanort.”

"Not him." Stormfall smiles gently. “You.”

Aqua shudders again, slowly rising her quivering chin. “It may take a little time.”

“We are patient,” Stormfall says, and gestures away from them. The mist dissipates into flecks of light, illuminating a platform in the middle of the darkness.

There’s more gray and black than vibrant and piercing blue. Almost like there’s still a faint sheen of mist obscuring the true colors. Even her own hazy likeness seems sadder—eyes half-closed and dull, frown deep, body bent awkwardly along the slow curve of the platform. “It’s… not like I remember,” Aqua whispers.

“Did you think Keyblades and bodies were the only things that grow and change? Your heart does the same. It is in its nature.”

But Terra and the Master are still in their portraits, gazing up at her with determination; she hadn’t known Ven the first time he’d fallen but he’s here now, his mouth open in a silent battlecry. Two pricks of color, red and green. She stares at them with a deep sort of hunger, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’ve hurt them.” Aqua takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t… know if they’ll forgive me.”

“You can wonder. Or,” Stormfall says, offering its hand to her, “you can see.”

There’s only a second’s hesitation—just enough for a breath, for her mouth to go dry. When Aqua grabs its hand she's surprised by the warmth. Like she's holding the blade in her hands after all.

She closes her eyes.

The Land of Departure blurs back to her in stages: thunder slowly rumbling beyond the stained-glass windows, small bursts of light illuminating the painted walls, her skin buzzing into coherency. Her legs are throbbing and weak when she stands up. One hand grasps blindly behind her to stabilize herself; it takes a moment to readjust to breathing again. Her mouth’s still dry, her cheeks hurt from crying, and her hands—

Her hands are still warm.

She breathes. Once, twice. And instead of summoning, she searches her thoughts.

For a moment she worries that the strange warmth in her chest is a figment of a dream, but there, right there, the alien consciousness reaches out from the very edges of her brain. Her throat’s still raw from the dream, from screaming before falling, and the laughter that tumbles out is unpracticed at best; she presses her forehead against the back of the wood chair and smiles. That connection is proof enough. “Thank you,” she whispers.

The soft thrumming in the back of her mind is reassurance enough that she was heard.

She lets her heart guide her out of the throne room, down one flight of stairs and up another, past the Master’s study and the library. The heaviness in the back of her mind doesn’t leave, and it’s only then that Aqua sighs with relief. It’s short-lived; her stomach twists itself in knots when she turns toward Terra’s door, open just a crack to the hall. “This is the right thing,” Aqua whispers.

She swears that Stormfall _purrs_ in the back of her mind.

There’s still a moment’s hesitation. But slowly, Aqua pushes the door open.

His room is cold for a spring night. Terra and Ven are stretched out along the giant windowsill, curtains pushes back against the wall. She hears the hiss of rain coming through the open windows, flooding the room with the crisp clean only a storm can bring. Ven’s wrapped up in blankets, his leg bouncing absentmindedly.

Terra, still like the mountains, is the one to notice her first. A sleepy sort of concern knits his brow as he regards her, shifting just slightly against the window frame. “Hey,” he whispers.

She takes her cue from his soft words. “Ven’s asleep?” she whispers. Terra nods. Aqua comes up to the two of them, pulling the chair from Terra’s desk and sitting between them.

“Yeah. We did a lot today.”

Running around after her, fighting Heartless. Ends of the Earth is nowhere to be found, but she notices Terra’s hand hanging loosely at his side. “And you’re…?”

“I’ll take it easy tomorrow,” he says.

She forces herself to lock eyes with him; he deserves nothing less. “Terra, I’m…”

“It’s okay,” he says, and turns back to the storm. “I understand.”

“Wait,” she says, and grabs his hand. It’s an intimate, arresting motion—she feels him stiffen in her grasp. He doesn’t look at her, but he doesn’t let go either. “It’s _not_ okay, I… I shouldn’t have left you back in Twilight Town. I shouldn’t have run away when we got back home. I should have let you both in, I… was afraid.”

“We’re all afraid,” he says. “None of us knows how we’re going to do any of this.”

“I thought I needed to know what to do,” she says, swallowing hard. “I thought—”

“You don’t have to do this by yourself. We’re getting stronger every day. _I’m_ getting stronger every day.” Before she has the chance to pull back, he threads their fingers together. “And maybe I won’t be the same as I was before—”

“Terra, you—”

“What matters is that you’ll be safe. And that I’ll be trying, as hard as I can.”

She chuckles. “You should have been made Master,” she whispers.

“Maybe,” Terra says, and looks straight into her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean you _shouldn’t_ have been. And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way.”

She doesn’t want to cry in front of him; she doesn’t know if she has any tears left in her. But she nods, squeezing their hands together. “I’m going to struggle,” she says, stroking the inside of his thumb. “More often than I’d like. But… it helps, knowing I have you both with me. And you need to know—”

“We have you,” he says, and smiles. “I know.”

“I haven’t been fair to you, so if... if you need me to do anything, you can tell me. Or not do anything, or even—”

“Aqua?”

“Yes?”

Terra opens his eyes, watery and softer than she’s ever seen them. “What time is it?”

“I… don’t know,” she says. “The clock’s downstairs. Why?”

“I don’t think I can get up,” he says.

“You’re that tired?”

“Ven’s on my foot,” he says, gesturing beneath the blankets. Aqua laughs. “And I’m… tired, yeah.”

She doesn’t know the bone-aching exhaustion Terra must be fighting, and somehow she knows he doesn’t want to talk about it just now. And she doesn’t want to leave them. “We can just wait here, then?”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

She doesn’t know how long they stay like that; seconds or hours could pass and they wouldn’t know the difference. Aqua doesn’t mind. The last few days—the last few _years—_ have been such a whirlwind that she doesn’t remember the last time she’d just sat somewhere and _watched_ things happen, without worrying about Heartless or responsibilities. It’s nice to sit in the night with blankets wrapped around her, with Terra’s hand still in hers, with Ven’s soft breathing the only sound in the room after the thunder dies and the rain hisses itself into silence.

After what seems like forever, Ven startles awake. “Is it—”

Terra reaches out, covering Ven’s knee with his hand. “You didn’t miss it. Neither of you did.”

It takes him a moment to register the comment, to turn and face her. He leans forward to hold her in a half-hug, pressing his forehead into her shoulder. “You’re okay?”

“I will be,” Aqua says, reaching out with her other hand to smooth a few unruly locks of his blond hair. “What’re you two doing, anyway?”

Ven pulls away after a few moments, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “We’re waiting for daybreak,” Ven explains.

“Waiting to catch the sun?” Aqua asks, turning to Terra.

He nods, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders. “Just like old times.”

Terra had been the one to come up with the game, and Ven had become the keeper as soon as they’d deemed him old enough to play. If you have your hands cupped just right on the perfect spot on the horizon, Terra said, you’d have the sun in your hands. It was supposed to be a good-luck charm. They’d almost played the night before the exam, before Master Eraqus had caught on and demanded they spend the night sleeping for the best results.

Ven pulls her back to the present by shifting his place on the window. “I’m glad you came,” he finally says.

They brush shoulders as they fling their hands out the open window. They’ve never done this from the bedroom before, only the training grounds. Her eyes are heavy and aching for sleep, but she keeps awake by stealing glances at her boys from the corners of her eyes. She catches them sneaking peeks at her, too, beneath Terra’s slightly furrowed brow and Ven’s anxious smile.

“Neither of you deserved what I put you through the last few days,” she says quietly. “I’m… going to do better.”

Ven looks down, swallowing hard. “You’ll let us help?” Ven asks. “You promise?”

Aqua nods. “And I’ll help you. Always.”

Terra says nothing, but presses his knee against hers.

She’ll tell them about Stormfall tomorrow.

The first golden rays of dawn break over the mountains, and Terra’s the one who cries out in victory. His fingers are bathed in it, and she doesn’t know what’s more blinding: the sun or his smile stretching his face out. Terra reaches over to ruffle Ven’s hair, his laughter booming. “Looks like I’m the lucky one today.”

Ven laughs, waving Terra’s hand away with a wink and a wagging finger. “Best two out of three!”

“It’s not a competition,” Terra says. “Besides, we can’t do this all the time.”

“Why not?”

“Because we need actual sleep?”

“What about once a week?” Aqua asks. She looks between them with a smile. “If we all feel good enough to do it. We sleep in, have a lazy morning. Maybe a whole day off…”

“You’ll take a day off that often?” Ven asks, his smile stretching wide.

“Barring no emergencies… yes.”

“Yeah! Okay, but you have to make her hot chocolate for next time if it’s going to stay this chilly. And Terra—”

“Provides the free seating,” Terra finishes, smiling.

“Like you’d charge for it,” Aqua laughs.

“Hot chocolate is absolutely a charge!”

“And then we just spend the day together,” Ven says.

“I’d like that,” Terra says.

Stormfall hums in approval in the back of her mind.

Aqua smiles, holding on to both her boys as she throws her face to the sunshine. “That’s all I need.”

* * *

_something was bound to go right sometime today_  
_all these broken pieces fit together  
to make a perfect picture of us_

_and in the middle of the flood I felt my worth_  
_when you held on to me like I was your little life raft  
please know that you were mine as well._

([snow patrol - the lightning strike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ya3StAppxA))

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To [Thirteenth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThirteenthHour/pseuds/TheThirteenthHour) and [Sophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiecognito), who beta'd this fic and encouraged every painful word; and to every friend who has commented on this or any other fic: my biggest and most sincere thanks. <3
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/awakingdormancy) and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/awakingdormancy)!

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it took me this long to write a multi-chap fic for my main fandom but here we are! Hope everyone is ready for a ride down Headcanon Highway, 'cause it's gonna be a doozy.
> 
> Come scream with me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/awakingdormancy) and [tumblr](http://awakingdormancy.tumblr.com)!


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